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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Exactly when life begins is a theological debate. Even the three religions rooted in Abraham don't agree. Christians tend to go with at moment of conception, Muslims believe life starts 120 days after conception, and Jews believe that life starts at birth. Thus I would argue the most restrictive laws that ban morning after pills and even birth control infringe on freedom of religion as the USA is not a theocracy.
Abortion is never a good outcome but there are so many complex situations that I am totally against govts making blanket laws about abortion at least up to 6 months or so. I want any pregnant woman to have support and options (including govt subsidised) for prenatal care and adoption. Govt funds already can't be used for abortion, I feel that is a fair compromise.
For those of you who think this issue isn't about religion, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was just notified by the archbishop that she can no longer receive Holy Communion in San Francisco because she supports abortion rights. Biden was similarly denied Communion several years ago. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/20/polit...ese/index.html
The imposition of their beliefs by any organized religion on others is one of the most egregious things in this whole abortion debate and leaves no room for discussion or compromise, particularly when it's an attack on an important political figure. While I don't think it's a good idea at all to allow individual states (see Oklahoma, above) to determine the legality of an important issue like this, I'm beginning to think it will at least allow maintenance of some pockets of sanity and respect for others in the US.
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out, in a place like my home state of Georgia, where there's a booming film industry, lots of corporate HQ's, a currently healthy economy, that all could be hugely impacted by their anti-reproductive rights trigger law that won't even make an exception for rape. These industries will leave.
I've already started to kind of let my family and friends and know, that as it stands, I'd feel morally conflicted to visit a state where women are treated as subhuman dirt, and extremist religion is the law of the land.
After all the dust is settled (which may indeed include riots), I do think the country may come out alright. The 20 or so sane states will become better places, where abortion rights is the protected and undisputed law of the land. The question is what will happen with the rest of the states, especially the more purple ones. Georgia went for Biden this election, but at the state level is still controlled by far-right social conservatives.
The "larger and more baby-like" it becomes, the fewer doctors are willing to participate. If the mother's life/health are at risk, or the fetus has serious abnormalities, that's one thing, but if a woman waltzes into a clinic at 4 or 5 months pregnant and asks for an abortion of a healthy fetus because she's just now made up her mind that she doesn't want it, she shouldn't be surprised to be told that this is not legal and/or that no doctor there wants to perform such an unpleasant procedure.
Fortunately, the vast majority of women don't need months to decide.
Let's please try to keep the language civil and leave the sarcasm out. No woman "waltzes" into an abortion clinic at any point. A woman who has waited 4 or 5 months isn't making a choice on the level of picking out paint colors. There has to be a stressful situation of some sort surrounding a pregnancy that has progressed to that point.
A sixteen-year-old who unrealistically hoped her boyfriend will marry her and be a father to her baby only to see him disappear is probably the most common such situation. I remember one such friend, a bit older, though. 19, I think. She told her family she was having a baby, but then the father changed his mind and left the state. She was one of six siblings, father was dead, and she had no way to support a kid. She was 4 months, I remember.
I'd much prefer it be more difficult to obtain an abortion past 12 weeks, but it will still be necessary to make it available. Poor and too-young women cannot be forced to bear children just because they are young and naive or poor, and I suspect those are the majority who fall into this category.
I've seen a few orphanages in my time and they were never a happy looking place, it saddened me greatly to drive by and see the kids playing outside. How could they know the eventual outcome of their predicament, at such a young age. I've cringed at the sight of young children who are suffering in dire poverty, and we all carry the inconvenient knowledge that millions of kids are barely getting by on a daily basis all over the world.
There certainly are worse things than the practice of abortion when considering the terrible lives lived by unwanted children.. Wanting to get between a woman and what is most likely the most difficult decision she will ever make seems brutish and uncaring, not to mention the fact that our society has had a long sordid history with our collective views on children born to the less fortunate. Hidden away in "Children's Homes" a polite name for a place to stash thousands of unwanted lives, hidden away in the run down streets of American ghettos, hidden in rural outback environs where we see very young kids drinking Coke to stave off hunger, and the majority of those children are here simply for the reason that society says that's the way we roll..
We'd be much further down the road of our spiritual evolution if we were to collectively take care of kids, all kids, and support the idea that life is not just for the wealthy, the able bodied, or the super talented. The self righteous should shed their transparent veils of concern and concentrate on the welfare of the children who are here now, alive and uncared for.. Arguing all day about the semantics of what constitutes human life seems a bit disingenuous in light of the fact that few of the so called "pro lifers" seem to care much about the tens of thousands of unwanted children living in our midst.
I've seen a few orphanages in my time and they were never a happy looking place...
Hidden away in "Children's Homes" a polite name for a place to stash thousands of unwanted lives, hidden away in the run down streets of American ghettos, hidden in rural outback environs where we see very young kids drinking Coke to stave off hunger, and the majority of those children are here simply for the reason that society says that's the way we roll..
What country or countries were you in?
I absolutely agree that it is a societal imperative to provide good homes for children whose parents can't or aren't willing to care for them, but your orphanage scenario is a rabbit trail which has no relationship to the topic of abortion. There have been no orphanages in the US for decades.
I absolutely agree that it is a societal imperative to provide good homes for children whose parents can't or aren't willing to care for them, but your orphanage scenario is a rabbit trail which has no relationship to the topic of abortion. There have been no orphanages in the US for decades.
We call it foster care now. At least 100,000 kids available to adopt. 17,000 age out every year. It’s a hard life for children who aren’t wanted or need to find safe haven in foster care.
I'd much prefer it be more difficult to obtain an abortion past 12 weeks, but it will still be necessary to make it available. Poor and too-young women cannot be forced to bear children just because they are young and naive or poor, and I suspect those are the majority who fall into this category.
Something that hasn't been mentioned, and it is a bit of a tangent, is that one of several reasons abortion is difficult to access in many areas--such as state laws, etc.--is that there is a genuine dearth of doctors who are willing to perform this procedure, especially after a certain point in pregnancy. You can't force a person to do something which is against their conscience.
Years ago my family knew a well-known doctor who had performed many, many abortions--tens of thousands. He told us that at first he and his co-workers joked about how fast and efficient they were and whose daily tally was highest. Over years, though, those numbers began to weigh on him and he eventually developed such a revulsion to performing abortions that he completely refused to do them any more.
It's one thing to perform a medically indicated abortion; you might say it is like being a vet who performs the sad but necessary service of euthanizing old and sick animals. But to be a vet who works at a kill shelter, euthanizing healthy animals that just are not wanted, is another level. It's psychologically traumatic and the suicide rate is high. I think that's how this doctor felt. He was traumatized by the sheer number of healthy pregnancies that he had ended. In fact, although he had not been religious at all for most of his life, he eventually underwent a conversion because he felt that he needed God's forgiveness for ending all of those lives.
So, it's one thing to say that on-demand abortions should be readily available months into a healthy pregnancy, possibly through the entire duration (although I do think public opinion is generally against that, and no need to point out that the vast majority of women would not request an abortion late in pregnancy--I mention it only because other posters have), and another to task other human beings with having to do them.
We call it foster care now. At least 100,000 kids available to adopt. 17,000 age out every year. It’s a hard life for children who aren’t wanted or need to find safe haven in foster care.
I think this is a topic for another thread because there is no direct correlation between a baby's having been "wanted" at birth and its later ending up in foster care. Let's just say that access to safe and legal abortion over the past 50 years has not reduced the number of children in foster care.
Something that hasn't been mentioned, and it is a bit of a tangent, is that one of several reasons abortion is difficult to access in many areas--such as state laws, etc.--is that there is a genuine dearth of doctors who are willing to perform this procedure, especially after a certain point in pregnancy. You can't force a person to do something which is against their conscience.
Years ago my family knew a well-known doctor who had performed many, many abortions--tens of thousands. He told us that at first he and his co-workers joked about how fast and efficient they were and whose daily tally was highest. Over years, though, those numbers began to weigh on him and he eventually developed such a revulsion to performing abortions that he completely refused to do them any more.
It's one thing to perform a medically indicated abortion; you might say it is like being a vet who performs the sad but necessary service of euthanizing old and sick animals. But to be a vet who works at a kill shelter, euthanizing healthy animals that just are not wanted, is another level. It's psychologically traumatic and the suicide rate is high. I think that's how this doctor felt. He was traumatized by the sheer number of healthy pregnancies that he had ended. In fact, although he had not been religious at all for most of his life, he eventually underwent a conversion because he felt that he needed God's forgiveness for ending all of those lives.
So, it's one thing to say that on-demand abortions should be readily available months into a healthy pregnancy, possibly through the entire duration (although I do think public opinion is generally against that, and no need to point out that the vast majority of women would not request an abortion late in pregnancy--I mention it only because other posters have), and another to task other human beings with having to do them.
I think that's a fair point. No doctor should be forced to perform abortions, either at all, or beyond the first trimester if they object to later-term abortions but are comfortable with performing earlier ones.
I think this is a topic for another thread because there is no direct correlation between a baby's having been "wanted" at birth and its later ending up in foster care.
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